The Pure Land by Alan Spence

two guards, armed with swords and pikes, who stood with their backs to the door.
    Walsh spoke quietly with the translator, explained to Glover. ‘He says the Shogun wants rifles and ammunition which the suppliers may not be willing to sell to him directly. He says we are in a position to arrange it, and it would be very much in our interests to comply with the Shogun’s request.’
    ‘Could that be construed as a threat?’ asked Glover. He was suddenly acutely aware that the armed men, as well as guarding the entrance, were blocking the exit.
    ‘You’re learning,’ said Walsh.
    He stood up and moved away from the table, beckoned Glover to the far side of the room where they could confer.
    ‘I’m in two minds about this,’ said Glover, under his breath. ‘I mean, it is the bloody Shogun who’s been making life so difficult for us.’
    ‘So we get on his good side. That’s what this fellow’s saying. Should lead to a few more concessions.’
    ‘And if it doesn’t?’
    ‘Well then, we can make sure his enemies are better armed than he is!’
    They shook hands on it, returned to the table and indicated to the agent they were ready to do business. 
    *
    Walsh would take a cut for brokering the deal. Glover’s job was to make the crossing to Shanghai, hand over payment, pick up the merchandise. Wang-Li would accompany him, act as translator, hire bodyguards.
    Shanghai was even worse than he remembered it, perhaps because he was used to Nagasaki. There were even more armed guards round the foreign settlement. Rumours of uprising were always rife; according to Walsh, the latest threat was from a warlord who regarded himself as a reincarnation of Jesus Christ, determined this time to establish the Kingdom of Heaven by force. Glover had laughed at that, but here, now, as he walked these back streets, the hellish reality of the place assailed him. Blood Alley. The Whore of the Orient. Stinking to high Heaven.
    The meeting place was near the waterfront, and Wang-Li led him through a warren of crowded backstreets, narrow alleyways, the two Chinese bodyguards following close behind, circumspect, alert. As they approached one doorway, the entrance to some drinking den, Wang-Li raised a hand, stopping them, just before a brawl came spilling out; two drunk sailors, tangled up in each other, punched, kicked, butted, gouged, tumbled to the ground, grappling. By the sound of them one was Irish, the other Russian. They fought on with ferocious animal intensity, grunted and snarled. Wang-Li stepped round them, led on, down an even darker, narrower alley. He leered at Glover as they passed one doorway after another, in each one a grotesque tableau, a grim coupling; a sailor ramming a scrawny young woman hard againsta dank wall, another holding one by the hair as she kneeled in front of him, took him in her mouth.
    ‘Fucking hell!’ said Glover, the images searing into him.
    Wang-Li laughed, led on further till they came to an archway leading into a courtyard. Two armed guards stood outside a warehouse; Wang-Li spoke to them, led the way in, through the warehouse stacked with boxes and crates, to a half-lit back room where a fat Chinese merchant sat at a table, welcomed them, grinned, motioned them to sit. His name was Chan. He called out and a young woman brought through a deep lacquer tray, on it a kettle and teapot, little unglazed ceramic cups. Wang-Li and Chan began their dialogue straight away, in their own language, and Glover understood none of it, had simply to trust. His ear had grown attuned to the sounds and rhythms of Japanese, but this was entirely other, had a strange music all of its own, nasal and singsong with utterly unfamiliar vowels, some of it half-swallowed and all delivered rapid-fire. He watched the young woman pour the tea, go through a whole brisk ritual; pouring hot water into the teapot and into each cup, swilling round, slopping out into the tray where it drained away underneath; then stuffing a